Saddle up and ride

MORRIS — Amid hazy skies and a severe air quality warning blanketing most of the province, the Manitoba Stampede & Exhibition raced ahead with its events, despite the risk wildfire smoke poses to competitors and animals.

In front of a nearly sold-out crowd all weekend, cowboys and cowgirls competed in chuckwagon racing, bareback riding and steer wrestling while smoke from wildfires raging in northern Manitoba hung in the air above the grandstand in Morris.

“If it got bad enough, we take the welfare of the stock primarily into concern: the cowboys, competitors, everybody,” Mike Bellisle, president of the Valley Agricultural Society, said on Sunday afternoon.

“It’s one of the contingencies we never considered … we’ve never dealt with it before.”

On Friday, Environment Canada issued a special air quality statement warning much of Manitoba would have poor air quality throughout the weekend, owing to wildfire smoke.

On Sunday afternoon the air quality health index value in Morris was at 10, which Environment Canada considers a very high risk to health.

Brad Vrolijk, a lead forecaster at Environment Canada, said when the air quality index is that high people and animals should do whatever they can do avoid being outdoors.

“It’s not pleasant for anybody,” he said. “There’s lots of outdoor events this weekend, so I recognize there’s a lot of things people want to do … be inside if you can.”

Bellisle said the stampede was playing things by ear in terms of how bad the smoke got, but with a south wind they were hoping it would blow away within a few hours.

The stampede has contingency plans for most inclement weather, but this was their first rodeo in dealing with smoke.

Bellisle said he did not consider cancelling the event because of the air quality warnings.

“We had our debrief this morning and our prepping meeting and there was no discussion about it other than it’s hazy,” he said.

The stampede follows the Canadian Pro Rodeo Association’s guidelines for animal husbandry and it has vets on site to assess animal health.

“If they came and said, ‘You need to shut down,’ we’d shut down immediately,” he said.

Other official bodies have guidelines on cancelling events due to air quality.

In its guidelines, the Liquor, Gaming and Cannabis Authority of Manitoba recommends horse racing be cancelled if the air quality index is 10 or above. That recommendation from the provincial regulator has led to cancellations at Assiniboia Downs in the past.

Multiple events had to be cancelled across Manitoba on Sunday over the smoky air.

On Sunday morning the Sail West regional championships in Gimli cancelled its competition owing to wildfire smoke.

The Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra postponed its Summer Series concert which was due to be held outdoors at Le Patio 340 in St. Boniface.

Health Canada says there’s no known safe level of exposure for some pollutants in wildfire smoke and it can impact health even at very low levels.

Kathleen Parks was at the stampede Sunday afternoon as part of her trip to Manitoba from Nova Scotia to visit family.

She didn’t consider not attending due to wildfire smoke.

“We bought our tickets and we were going to come either way,” she said. “We didn’t even think about (the smoke).”

Danae Tonge, an organizer with animal-rights group Manitoba Animal Save, called the decision to move ahead with the weekend’s events in Morris irresponsible.

“The animals being forced to exert themselves in this air quality warning is dangerous and inhumane,” she said.

Horses, cattle, calves and other rodeo animals being pushed to exert themselves in smoky air increases the strain on their respiratory and cardiovascular systems, according to Tonge.

“We also know that rodeos self-report animal injuries and deaths, so this information isn’t easily obtained by the public, which is a concern,” she said.

Tonge and about 25 others protested outside the rodeo on Saturday, as they have every year since 2018, calling for an end to the annual event.

“We had one person come up to us during the protest and tell us that some of the animals, dogs and sheep, appeared to be ‘weathered.’ That was the term they used, and when we asked further, we were told the animals seemed to be having a tough time with the weather,” she said.

Bellisle said animal welfare is top of mind for rodeo organizers and if the smoke got worse, they would postpone the competitions.

No animals had been pulled from events owing to respiratory issues as of Sunday afternoon, according to Bellisle.

Cancelling an event like the stampede is not as easy as postponing a sporting event or concert, Bellisle added.

Riders from across Canada and the United States travel for the competition and about one million dollars’ worth of livestock participate in the three-day event.

“It would throw a whole lot of behind the scenes,” he said. “When you have an event planned, you can’t move it. The date is the date, and that’s it.”

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Contingency plans for air quality will be part of the stampede’s emergency plan moving forward, Bellisle said.

“It’s just not something we’ve ever had to deal with. I know it’ll come up during our next meeting with the steering committee and we want to do what’s right,” he said.

Smoke across the Red River Valley is expected to dissipate and conditions will improve by Monday night, but the relief will be short-lived, Vrolijk said.

A weather system moving in from Saskatchewan is expected to push smoke eastward, but by mid-week a cold front will bring smoke back to the region.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca

Nicole Buffie
Multimedia producer

Nicole Buffie is a reporter for the Free Press city desk. Born and bred in Winnipeg, Nicole graduated from Red River College’s Creative Communications program in 2020 and worked as a reporter throughout Manitoba before joining the Free Press newsroom as a multimedia producer in 2023. Read more about Nicole.

Every piece of reporting Nicole produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.